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LogRisk: Caution
  • Windows Server

dcpromoui.log C:\Windows\debug\dcpromoui.log

Log of the AD DS promotion and demotion interface; complements dcpromo.log. Specific to server editions.

Updated on By AltF4 Formation

What it’s for

dcpromoui.log is the log of the domain controller promotion and demotion interface: wizard pages, the options the administrator chose, and the validation of those options. It works with dcpromo.log, which carries the technical detail of the operation. On a recent Windows Server, both are fed by the Server Manager wizard as well as by Install-ADDSDomainController.

What it contains

  • The flow of the wizard or unattended run, with the selected options (domain, site, global catalog role, DNS server).
  • The prerequisite checks and their results.
  • The errors shown to the user, with their codes.

Risks and best practices

  • Deleting it does not stop AD DS from working, but you lose the only trace of the choices made during promotion.
  • Keep it with dcpromo.log until the domain controller is validated in production, then archive both.
  • It names domains and servers: review it before sending it to a third party.

Useful commands

Fenêtre de terminal
# Last lines of the log
Get-Content "$env:windir\debug\dcpromoui.log" -Tail 80


# Search for errors
Select-String -Path "$env:windir\debug\dcpromoui.log" -Pattern 'error|fail|0x[0-9a-f]{8}' | Select-Object -Last 40


# Domain controller health check once promotion is done
dcdiag /q

Format

Plain text, one line per event, with the date and time at the start followed by the interface message.

Rotation and archiving

Copy it together with dcpromo.log after each promotion or demotion, before you start another operation.

How to read it

Open it next to dcpromo.log. Find the time of the failure, note the message shown on screen here, then look for the technical cause in dcpromo.log at the same time.

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